1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is related to a printer device, and particularly, to a printer device having a cutter function and a thermal head.
2. Description of the Related Art
Small-size thermal printers are installed in POS terminals and ticketing terminals. In order to facilitate setting of paper, a thermal printer includes a first module and a second module which is detachably attached to the first module, and a cutter device is provided with the first module joined to the second module. The cutter device includes a plate-like fixed blade, which is fixed to the first module, and a plate-like movable blade, which is slidably attached to the second module; the movable blade moves to cross the fixed blade to cut the paper like scissors.
For example, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2005-059395 (referred to as “reference 1” hereinafter) discloses a technique in this field.
The POS terminals and the ticketing terminals use roll paper as printing media. The roll paper used in the POS terminal or the ticketing terminal is 70 μm in thickness, and the cutter device described above can sufficiently cut such kind of paper.
Presently, for example, when making labels, sometimes, thermosensitive paper thicker than 150 μm is used. When the thickness of the paper is thicker than 150 μm, the load imposed on the cutter device when cutting the paper becomes large. For example, considering the plate-like movable blade, since the movable blade is relatively flexible, such a large load may shorten the service-life of the movable blade.
Further, when the thickness of the paper is thicker than 150 μm, the paper is more elastic, so that it is required that the channel for conveying the paper induces small resistance against movement of the paper.